I Defied the "Landlord Special" and Replaced My Electrical Outlets

I Defied the "Landlord Special" and Replaced My Electrical OutletsRenters who fix or undo the "landlord special" should get an automatic pass into heaven. Removing glops of paint from fixtures. Connecting the gaps where the wall and floor are supposed to meet. Peeling off shoddily applied contact paper or tile decals. This is all God’s work and will be duly rewarded in the afterlife.

As such, I should get an automatic pass into heaven for replacing two of my electrical outlets that were covered in layers of decades-old paint and therefore unusable, a project I paid for out of pocket, of course. I couldn’t imagine my landlord reversing the work of the painters he hired two years ago to give my walls a fresh coat. But a girl needs access to electricity. These outlets were so heavily coated in paint that a plug wouldn’t even stay in—and they were two-prong, and I really wanted to upgrade to three-prong.

I initially planned to replace the outlets by watching YouTube tutorials because I didn’t want to spend much money on this project. It seemed straightforward enough: turn off the breaker, remove the plate, detach the wires, swap in the new outlet, reattach wires, screw in the new plate, turn on the breaker, and then plug in your blow-dryer or whatever. In reality, the ordeal was more complicated.

To start, I had to remove the paint, which took a handful of hours over the course of a couple of days. Furniture needed to be pushed aside so I could comfortably crouch down. I didn’t have proper tools for removing caked-on paint so I used a flathead screwdriver to chip away what I imagined was five layers of cancer-causing lead paint. I felt like an archaeologist—one working in extremely hazardous conditions.

Paint chips were all over my floor and getting stuck in between floor boards. I have never had to mop and vacuum such specific areas in my apartment so many times in a row. Removing the paint from the tiny grooves of the screws was arduous. At one point I introduced an Exacto knife into my paint-removing toolkit. I’m lucky I didn’t accidentally stab my hand with a screwdriver or knife.

Finally, after a week of excavating and unscrewing the plates, I peeked inside the holes. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but the YouTube tutorials made it seem like I’d be presented with easily identifiable colored wires that were neatly wrapped around the terminal screws and grounding screws of the outlet. Ha ha! Instead, every wire was rusty and black, thick and impossible to bend. It was clear that some of the wire coating would need to be removed and pulled back. At this point, I knew I had to call a professional.

After scrolling through tons of folks on TaskRabbit, many of whom were charging upward of $250 (out of my budget), I got a recommendation from a friend who said her local handy guy could do this for cheap "as a favor." The dude came in, checked out the wires, and as I’d expected, said this job would be a breeze for him, and maybe take him 15 minutes tops to replace both outlets.

Incredible, I thought, how much could he charge, right? When he finished, in his most Brooklyn accent, said in a single breath, "Okay miss, that will be $100, but just so you know, my normal rate for this would be $250, and that’s my baseline fee for surviving and doing this kind of work, but I told your friend I’d cut you a deal, so you can pay me whatever you want on a sliding scale starting at $100, but just so you know, my normal rate for this would be $250 and if you could pay my usual rate I’d appreciate it."

He looked right into my eyes as I said, "Okay, let me run to the ATM," where I withdrew $260 since the bills came in increments of $20. People ought to get paid for what they think they deserve, I thought, and this handy guy has done me a huge solid. I forked over the cash, thanked him, and went into my apartment to plug in a bedroom lamp.

Top photo by Tacojim via Getty Images.

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